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Job 9:9

9 He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the constellations of the south.10 He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted.NIV

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Venus Transit of the Sun

The BIG event! Venus transits are quite rare. I was going to say... that a Venus transit is even more rare than having the Cleveland Browns making it to the Super Bowl, but that is not a good analogy, being the Cleveland Browns have NEVER made it to the Super Bowl!

Ok, on a serious note, the last Venus transit occured on the 8th of June in 2004... but wait, before that, it hasnt happened since 1882. The next one will not occur until 2117. They occur in pairs, 8 years apart, and repeats with another pairing 121.5 years later.

During the 2004 transit, I was not active in astronomy, so therefore I have no photos, but this year, I was all ready. My plan was to take a series of white light photos as Venus progressed across the face of the sun for about 2 1/2 of the 6 hour, 40 minute transit. I would be limited due to sunset, but thought it would be cool to photograph the progression and make a short AVI video of it.

Problem is, just as the event started, it began to rain. It was partly cloudy all day, which wouldnt be a problem, as I would take snapshots during breaks in the clouds. However, around 5pm, (the event started at 6:04PM), it got cloudier, and a rain cloud moved in at the beginning. I was able to snap off only 1 image, and it was partially obscured by cloud, but Venus was plainly visible in the upper left hand side of the disk. This image was taken at 6:36pm, Eastern Daylight time (2236 UTC).

This was the best I could get, as I waited until around 7:30pm, and the sky never cleared, so I packed it in. I was able to photograph it however, even though the image is not spectacular, I was able to capture the event.